While Democrats and anti-gun activists continue to lament the lack of assault on the Second Amendment at the congressional level, several states (most notably California) and cities like Pittsburgh, Pa., have taken it upon themselves to enact laws that are unenforceable, unconstitutional, or both.
An Allegheny County judge struck down three gun control laws that limit assault weapons and ammunition in Pittsburgh.
The ordinances would have restricted military-style assault weapons, like the AR-15 rifle used in the synagogue shooting. It also banned most uses of armor-piercing ammunition and high-capacity magazines and allowed the temporary seizure of guns from people who were determined to be a danger to themselves or others.
The laws were passed after the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018.
The court struck down the ordinances, saying the city didn’t have the authority to implement them. The judge said the laws are “void and unenforceable.”
Pennsylvania state law forbids municipalities from regulating guns.
Either Pittsburgh has the dumbest city attorney ever or the city was grandstanding.
The rule of thumb for states and cities enacting gun laws lately is to WAY overreach, hoping to get a lot of press and inconvenience law-abiding gun owners until a judge or a court can nuke the laws.
Earlier this year, a federal judge struck down California’s high-capacity magazine ban and issued a strong admonishment to the radical lawmakers responsible for it:
“Bad political ideas cannot be stopped by criminalizing bad political speech,” he wrote. “Crime waves cannot be broken with warrantless searches and unreasonable seizures. Neither can the government response to a few mad men with guns and ammunition be a law that turns millions of responsible, law-abiding people trying to protect themselves into criminals. Yet, this is the effect of California’s large-capacity magazine law.”
Court battles continue at all levels to attempt to thwart the extremely active anti-Second Amendment legislators in liberal states and municipalities. On Wednesday, Firearms Policy Coalition filed a Supreme Court brief to ask “the Court to hear a challenge to Maryland’s ‘good and substantial reason’ requirement for a firearm carry permit.”
The overreach of the anti-gun people has the unintended (for them) consequence of steeling the resolve of pro-gun people in a seemingly never-ending war of wills. It is a war that has been escalating of late and, sadly, probably hasn’t yet hit fever pitch.
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